Right Steps & Poui Trees

Tag Archives: photos


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It’s Still a New Year…

It’s not too late to wish you a happy new year, even though the year is already more than two weeks old. Even though it feels much older, given all that has happened so far…personally, nationally, globally. So, Happy New Year!

I watched the last setting moon for 2020 from my roof, on the morning of December 31, 2020…

I watched the New Year’s fireworks from my roof, as I have now for many years. There were far fewer of them this year, as the Covid-19 restrictions included a curfew from 10pm, a ban on parties and a limit to the size of gatherings…

I watched the first sunrise of 2021 later that morning…

This time last year there was no way I could have imagined how much life would have changed in the coming year, the changes brought by the pandemic being the most notable and unpredictable. Sitting here now, I am very aware that I haven’t a clue what things will be like a year from now. That is essentially the case each year, but the reality of 2020 has brought that into stark focus.

I remember a speech at the college graduation of one of my children years ago, in which the speaker said that the two most important qualities we could wish for our children in the times they were living in were adaptability and resilience. So true. And for us all. May the qualities of adaptabilty and resilience be yours in the coming year and the years beyond!


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Unknown Yellow: Nature’s Colours

I had no idea what the difference between a mushroom and a toadstool is, so I did a little online search and found out that there isn’t a scientific difference. However, in common parlance a mushroom is what’s edible and a toadstool is what’s poisonous.

I see mushrooms in my garden from time to time, but I had never seen one like this before…

I did a little online search, but haven’t yet been able to identify this yellow mushroom toadstool, growing on a block of wood from the trunk of the shower of gold tree (Cassia fistula) that fell down when Hurricane Sandy hit Jamaica. That was on October 24, 2012, almost 8 years ago. The blossoms of that shower of gold tree were, as the name suggests, a very bright yellow! This little toadstool is a paler shade…


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Sahara Dust & The View from My Window

This was the view from my window one morning last week:

view from the window week of 17-6-2020

Then a plume of Sahara dust swept across the Atlantic into the Caribbean, not an uncommon event, but this was perhaps the worst in fifty years, they said.

saharan dust

And with the dust in the air, this was the view from my window on Wednesday morning. I could not see the hills!

Sahara dust view 24-6-2020

 

 

That plume of Sahara dust has moved past us, here in Jamaica, though they say another will affect us in a few days time. But tonight, at sunset, I could see the hills again…against a salmon-coloured sky…sunset 26-6-2020